• Source: Chronograph of 354

The Chronograph, Chronography, or Calendar of 354 is a compilation of chronological and calendrical texts produced in 354 AD for a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentinus by the calligrapher and illustrator Furius Dionysius Filocalus. The original illustrated manuscript is lost, but several copies have survived. It is the earliest known codex to have had full page illustrations. The name Calendar of Filocalus or Filocalian Calendar is sometimes used to describe the whole collection, and sometimes just the sixth part, which is the Calendar itself. Other versions of the names ("Philocalus", "Philocalian", "Codex-Calendar of 354", etc.) are occasionally used. The text and illustrations are available online.
Amongst other historically significant information, the work contains the earliest reference to the celebration of Christmas as an annual holiday or feast, on December 25, although unique historical dates had been mentioned much earlier by Hippolytus of Rome during 202–211.




Transmission from antiquity


The original volume has not survived, but it is thought that it still existed in Carolingian times, by the 8th–9th centuries. A number of copies were made at that time, with and without illustrations, which in turn were copied during the Renaissance.
The most complete and faithful copies of the illustrations are the pen drawings in a 17th-century manuscript from the Barberini collection (Vatican Library, cod. Barberini lat. 2154). This was carefully copied, under the supervision of the great antiquary Nicholas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, from a Carolingian copy, a Codex Luxemburgensis, which was itself lost in the 17th century. These drawings, although they are twice removed from the originals, show the variety of sources that the earliest illuminators used as models for manuscript illustration, including metalwork, frescoes, and floor mosaics. The Roman originals were probably fully painted miniatures.
Various partial copies or adaptations survive from the Carolingian Renaissance and Renaissance periods. Botticelli adapted a figure of the city of Treberis (Trier) who grasps a bound barbarian by the hair for his painting, traditionally called Pallas and the Centaur.
The Vatican Barberini manuscript, made in 1620 for Peiresc, who had the Carolingian Codex Luxemburgensis on long-term loan, is clearly the most faithful. After Peiresc's death in 1637 the manuscript disappeared. However some folios had already been lost from the Codex Luxemburgensis before Peiresc received it, and other copies have some of these. The suggestion of Carl Nordenfalk that the Codex Luxemburgensis copied by Peiresc was actually the Roman original has not been accepted. Peiresc himself thought the manuscript was seven or eight hundred years old when he had it, and, though Mabillon had not yet published his De re diplomatica (1681), the first systematic work of paleography, most scholars, following Meyer Schapiro, believe Peiresc would have been able to make a correct judgement on its age. For a full list of manuscripts with copies after the originals, see the external link.




Contents


Furius Dionysius Filocalus was the leading scribe or calligrapher of the period, and possibly also executed the original miniatures. His name is on the dedication page. He was also a Christian, living in a moment that lay on the cusp between a pagan and a Christian Roman Empire.
The Chronography, like all Roman calendars, is as much an almanac as a calendar; it includes various texts and lists, including elegant allegorical depictions of the months. It also includes the important Liberian Catalogue, a list of Popes, and the Calendar of Filocalus, from which copies of eleven miniatures survive. Among other information, it contains the earliest reference to Christmas (see Part 12 below) and the dates of Roman Games, with their number of chariot-races.
The contents are as follows (from the Barberini Ms. unless stated). All surviving miniatures are full-page, often combined with some text in various ways:

Part 1: title page and dedication - 1 miniature
Part 2: images of the personifications of the cities of Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople and Trier - 4 miniatures
Part 3: images of the emperors and the birthdays of the Caesars - 2 miniatures
Part 4: images of the seven planets with a calendar of the hours - 5 surviving miniatures. Copies of the emblematic drawings appear in a Carolingian text that portrays Mercury and Venus in heliocentric orbits.
Part 5: the signs of the Zodiac – no miniatures surviving in this manuscript; four in other copies
Part 6: the Philocalian calendar – seven miniatures of personifications of the Months in this MS; the full set appears in other copies On December 25: "N·INVICTI·CM·XXX" – "Birthday of the unconquered, games ordered, thirty races" – is the oldest literary reference to the pagan feast of Sol Invictus
Part 7: consular portraits of the emperors – 2 miniatures (the last in the MS)
Part 8: list (fasti) of the Roman consuls to AD 354 At AD 1: "Hoc cons. dominus Iesus Christus natus est VIII kal. Ian. d. Ven. luna xv." – "When these [Caesare and Paulo] were consuls, Lord Jesus Christ was born 8 days before the kalends of January [December 25] on the day of Venus Moon 15" – is a historical reference
Part 9: the dates of Easter from AD 312 to 411
Part 10: list of the prefects of the city of Rome from 254 to 354 AD
Part 11: commemoration dates of past popes from AD 255 to 352
Part 12: commemoration dates of the martyrs Line 1: "VIII kal. Ian. natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae" – "Eighth day before the kalends of January [December 25] Birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea" – is the oldest reference to Jesus' birth as an annual feast day
Part 13: bishops of Rome, the Liberian Catalogue
Part 14: The 14 regions of the City [of Rome]
Part 15: Chronicle of the Bible
Part 16: Chronicle of the City of Rome (a list of rulers with short comments)




Chronology of Rome


Kings of Rome [753–509 BC]

Romulus son of Mars and Ilia reigned for 38 years... with Titus Tatius for 5 years.
Numa Pompilius reigned for 41 years
Tullus Hostilius reigned 32 years
Marius Phillipus reigned for 36 years
L. Tarquinius Priscus reigned 28 years
Servius Tullius reigned 46 years
Tarquinius Superbus reigned 25 years
The Dictators:

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus
[Quintus] Fabius Maximus
Apulius Claudius [Caecus]
[Publius] Valerius P[o]blicola
[Lucius Cornelius] Sulla Felix
[Publius Cornelius Scipio] Barbatus
[Lucius Quinctius] Cincinnatus
Quintus Fabius (?)
[Marcus] Lu[v]ius Salinator
[Gaius] Iu[n]ius Brutus
Rulership of the Caesars [48 BC–AD 324]

C. Julius Caesar ruled 3 years, 7 months, 6 days.
Octavian Augustus ruled 56 years, 4 months, 1 day.
Tiberius Caesar ruled 22 years, 7 months, 28 days.
C. Gallicula ruled 3 years, 8 months, 12 days.
Tiberius Claudius ruled 13 years, 8 months, 27 days.
Nero ruled 14 years, 5 months, 28 days.
Galba ruled 8 months and 12 days
Otho ruled 90 days
Vitellius ruled 8 months and 11 days.
The deified Vespasian ruled 12 years, 8 months, 28 days.
The deified Titus ruled ...
Domitian ruled 17 years, 5 months, 5 days
Nerva ruled 5 years, 4 months, 1 days.
Trajan ruled 19 years, 4 months, 27 days
Hadrian ruled 20 years, 10 months, 14 days.
Antoninus Pius ruled 22 years, 8 months, 28 days
The deified Verus ruled 7 years, 8 months, 12 days
Marcus Antoninus ruled 18 years, 11 months, 14 days
Commodus ruled 16 years, 8 months, 12 days
Pertinax ruled 75 days
Julianus ruled 65 days
The deified Severus ruled 17 years, 11 months, 28 days
Geta ruled 10 months and 12 days
Antoninus [Caracalla] the Great ruled 6 years, 2 months, 15 days
Macrinus rule 1 year, 4 months, 2 days
Antoninus Elagaballus ruled 6 years, 8 months, 18 days
Alexander ruled 13 years, 8 months and 9 days
Maximinus ruled 3 years, 4 months and 2 days
The two Gordians ruled for 20 days
Pupienus and Balbinus ruled 99 days
Gordian [III] ruled 5 years, 5 months and 5 days
The two Philips ruled 5 years, 5 months and 29 days
Decius ruled 1 year, 11 months and 18 days
Gallus and Volusianus ruled 2 years, 4 months and 9 days
Aemilianus ruled 88 days
Gallienus with Valerian ruled 14 years, 4 months and 28 days
Claudius ruled 1 year, 4 months and 14 days
Quintillus ruled 77 days
Aurelian ruled 5 years, 4 months and 20 days
Tacitus ruled 8 months, 12 days
Florian ruled 88 days
Probus ruled 6 years, 2 months, 12 days
Carus ruled 10 months and 5 days
Carinus and Numerian ruled 2 years, 11 months, 2 days
Diocletian and Maximian ruled 21 years, 11 months, 12 days
Constantius and Maximian ruled 16 years, 8 months and 12 days
Severus ruled 3 years, 4 months and 15 days
Maxentius ruled 6 years
Maximian ruled 9 years, 8 months, 6 days.
Licinius ruled 15 years, 4 months, 16 days




Notes






See also


On Weights and Measures
Roman calendar
Fasti
Menologia rustica




References


Salzman, Michele Renee. On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 17). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
Weitzmann, Kurt. Late Antique and Early Christian Book Illumination. New York: George Braziller, 1977.




Further reading


Burgess, R. W. "The Chronograph of 354: its Manuscripts, Contents, and History", Journal of Late Antiquity 5 (2012) 345–396.
Divjak, Johannes; Wischmeyer, Wolfgang (2014). Das Kalenderhandbuch von 354: Der Chronograph des Filocalus (volume 1, volume 2). Wien: Holzhausen, ISBN 978-3-902976-29-1 (volume 1) and ISBN 978-3-902976-30-7.
On the problems with the edition part of this work, see Burgess, R. W. "The New Edition of the Chronograph of 354: A Detailed Critique", Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 21 (2017): 383–415.
Nordenfalk, Carl (1938). Die spätantiken Kanontafeln. Kunstgeschichtliche Studien über die eusebianische Evangelien-Konkordanz in den vier ersten Jahrhunderten ihrer Geschichte. Gothenburg: Oscar Isacsons Boktryckery.
Pfund, Günther (2021). Von Picus bis Licinius: historischer Kommentar zu den „Chronica urbis Romae“ im Chronographen von 354. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, ISBN 978-3-515-12875-9.
Stern, Henri (1953). Le calendrier de 354. Étude sur son texte et ses illustrations. Paris: Geuthner.




External links



Online text and images, full introduction and bibliography at Tertullian.org: Chronography of 354

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Chronograph of 354
• Florianus
• Saint Sebastian
• Date of the birth of Jesus
• Gordian III
• Aemilianus
• Chronographia
• Severus Alexander
• Lucius Verus
• Christmas